Author: TheCanoeist

“Caught” in the Enterprise Shopping Centre in Eastbourne, which has a number of nice little, independent shops, from crafts and health, to a fishmongers and a butchers. If you’re in the town, take the trouble to wander along and discover it yourself. You’ll find it up behind the railway station.

Spent a grey day in Twickenham, on our current vagabonding experience in the UK….

A bit of a grey day, but thought I’d try the effects on the camera. Swans and pigeons and, of course, Canadian geese!

Just to the right of the shots, is a pub, where many a summer evening was whiled away, as the sun went down, with a pint in hand.

In fact, along the Richmond/Twickenham stretch of the River Thames, many a pub was frequented as we strolled along, or cycled. Not that it’s all about the pubs, but after a days fishing on the water, or a walk on a sunny afternoon, some pub grub and a pint can’t easily be beaten.

This question is relevant to anywhere, not just Redmire and I believe some of you may know considerably more than I do about such matters.

A question often posed about Redmire and the huge uncaught carp, is that during the 1976 drought the pool shrunk to a much smaller size and the carp were frequently seen at the surface most of the time:- presumably due to trying to get more oxygen.

This proves the huge carp did not exist, as they would have to have been at the surface much of the time as well and would have been seen.

But would they necessarily have to spend a lot of time near the surface? I remember clearly, that time in 1976, on the pools I was fishing. There was definitely not a noticeable increase in fish near the surface and certainly not any increase in sightings of large fish at the surface. In fact the opposite appeared to occur. A lot of the time there seemed to be no signs of fish at all – and I fished frequently at the crack of dawn and in the evenings.

Is it possible that in drought conditions large fish, especially large carp, may actually tend to bed down in the mud as they would in wintertime – ie become very sluggish, torpid, and go into their almost semi-hibernation state?

My logic, though almost certainly flawed, would be that in this state the metabolism slows right down and therefore the demand for oxygen is much reduced.

Somewhere below the Chironomid works it’s magic in about 20 ft of water.

Will the fish see it? Will the fish take it? All is hope and trust that you have done everything right and all the possibilities have converged to the one inevitable. The line will shoot forward and the strike will set the old Hardy pulsing as the Trout ( hopefully a Kamloops ) tries to regain freedom.

It doesn’t realise it’s eating qualities or it might fight harder, but I have no wish to kill it. It is enough to convince the Trout to take the nymph, enjoy the fight and marvel at the brilliance.

The scenery is superb as the sun shines upon the trees by this BC lake and the Osprey has put in an appearance.

The winter weather was cold and wet. Somewhere down in the depths fish would be hiding from the great push of flood water.

Where to fish was not the only problem, safety and possibility were also factors to consider.

The banks were treacherous and the amount of weight needed to hold bottom made the Pool out of bounds.

Perhaps the water above the Sea Trout ladder would be more productive.

This was certainly the case as the speed of the current was less as the water backed up to the main weir I found a spot to the right of the ladder and legered with a small Drennan feeder and maggots. It took a few re-fills, with 10 maggots a time in the little feeder, but eventually the small Shimano quiver went slowly round. A roach of about 6 oz came to hand. It looked surprised and felt warmer than I expected. The water temperature was good despite the biting wind trying to freeze me. I hoped the thermal suit would do it’s stuff and I wouldn’t need a toilet break.

At one point the sun tried desperately in vain to break through the clouds, but my success continued as more small roach and several bream came to the net.